Another View: Bay City's revival starts with an attitude adjustment

When you have lived in a community for a long time, it can be difficult to imagine it changing, to see past the present and envision your city for its true potential 10 to 15 years down the road. It takes visionary, positive thinking and bold leadership. It’s this type of thinking that’s starting to pay off with the Uptown at RiversEdge development.

To many, the Uptown site was nothing more than a symbol of blight and urban decay — 40 acres of contaminated industrial wasteland. That view of the property is the safe way to see things. To say a location or a city is blighted, and therefore no one wants it, requires no work or creativity at all. Once a city begins envisioning a site as something more than it is, then the community has to come together to actually do something about it, which takes a lot of energy, leadership and perseverance.

Fortunately, our city’s leaders were not afraid of hard work and saw the Uptown at RiversEdge site for the diamond in the rough that it is — 40 acres of prime riverfront property in the middle of a downtown. In other words, it’s a developer’s dream. That change in perspective resulted in the responsibility to take action, and that’s exactly what we did.

The RiversEdge Development Corp., which includes both city and business leaders, worked for more than 10 years to find the right developer who could realistically and successfully develop the Uptown property. During that time our resolve was tested, but the lesson learned was that positive thinking and relentless belief in your home town breeds positive action, which breeds positive results.

We now have a highly competent and credible developer in SSP Associates. With developments like the Saginaw Riverfront Medical Arts Complex and the Temple Theatre in Saginaw, and a major Dow office complex in Midland, SSP’s track record in the region is unmatched.

SSP’s initial $25 million investment and the 440 new jobs that will come to Bay City makes Uptown at RiversEdge one of the largest and most significant economic development projects in the state. SSP agreed to take the risk and invest in Bay City because they believed in our vision for a revitalized riverfront that is connected to our downtown.

If a dedicated and positive group of individuals, like those who formed the RiversEdge Development Corp., can come together to support their community and achieve these kinds of results, then there is no challenge our city cannot overcome. Bay City is located in one of the most beautiful and breathtaking states in our nation and next to one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world. If we work together, I have no doubt that we can become one of the prime destinations on Michigan’s east coast.

The Uptown at RiversEdge development is just the beginning of our riverfront revitalization. There is enough space on the property for several more developments of this size, but it will be up to all of us to work together to bring them to reality. It’s easy to sit back, raise doubts and to criticize, but I encourage the Bay City commissioners, business community and the public to continue to support efforts to develop our riverfront and attract investors to our city. The result will be an improved local economy, a beautified downtown and an improved quality of life for us all.